Friday, August 10, 2007

Philly Columnist Calls For 'Another 9/11'

Philadelphia Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky has joined the small but growing group of madmen leading the cheers for another large-scale terrorist attack on America, and he's fallen back on a Vietnam-era lie to justify his hatred. In Stu Bykofsky's world,

ONE MONTH from The Anniversary, I'm thinking another 9/11 would help America.

He's quite wrong about that, of course. It would help certain corporate/criminal interests who are intent on destroying America. And they do identify themselves with America. But that's only for domestic consumption.

Another 9/11 -- another terrorist attack of any kind -- would probably be the final nail in America's coffin. But don't expect Stu Bykofsky to say so. He's a journalist, after all. He's not required to tell the truth. And he doesn't.

What kind of a sick bastard would write such a thing?

A bastard so sick of how splintered we are politically - thanks mainly to our ineptitude in Iraq - that we have forgotten who the enemy is.

What kind of nonsense is this? Are we better dead than splintered?

The problem in Iraq is not "ineptitude". And the situation in Iraq is not what has splintered us politically. Our main problem is that we are constantly being lied to, both by our government and by our alleged news media, and only some of us are smart enough -- and aware enough -- to notice. The rest go along with the lies. How could we not be divided?

Stu Bykofsky takes a stab at identifying the enemy, and fails:

It is not Bush and it is not Hillary and it is not Daily Kos or Bill O'Reilly or Giuliani or Barack. It is global terrorists who use Islam to justify their hideous sins, including blowing up women and children.

Au contraire, Stu. Our main enemies are our criminal government and the lying media who support them. They are the only "global terrorists". There is no other terrorist organization of "global reach".

Iraq has fractured the U.S. into jigsaw pieces of competing interests that encourage our enemies. We are deeply divided and division is weakness.

Again the opposite is true. Iraq has not fractured the U.S. But the U.S. has destroyed Iraq. And for what?

Because that's what they've been told. But it wasn't a mistake at all -- it was a premeditated act of mass murder on an unimaginable scale, and a prelude to the grandest larceny in history.

Bykofsky says the problem is

Not because Americans are "anti-war."

But in fact, the majority of Americans are anti-war, pro-peace, and pro-justice.

That their voices are not often heard in what passes for our national discourse is a tragedy.

That other voices -- the likes of Stu Bykofsky -- are given major platforms to spew their ignorance and hatred is an even greater tragedy -- both for the world and for America itself.

Americans have turned their backs because the war has dragged on too long and we don't have the patience for a long slog. We've been in Iraq for four years, but to some it seems like a century. In contrast, Britain just pulled its soldiers out of Northern Ireland where they had been, often being shot at, almost 40 years.

It just so happens that millions of Americans were against the invasion of Iraq before it even began, and many millions more have come to oppose the war because they have learned how grossly they were duped into supporting it.

The comparison to Britain and Northern Ireland is most appropriate, though, but probably in ways Stu Bykofsky didn't intend. Northern Ireland was the victim of a psychotic and shrinking empire, whose intelligence agencies got their jollies bombing pubs and buses and blaming the victims.

Every time the IRA wanted to negotiate, there was another round of false-flag bombings, and another round of "righteous retribution" -- which meant innocent people being gunned down in the streets. Does this sound familiar?

Forty years from now we may be having this same debate -- about when is the right time to get out of Iraq. Will it sound familiar then too?

That's not the American way.

What is the American way? Does it have anything to do with Truth and Justice? Does it have anything to do with the inalienable rights of all mankind? Does it have anything to do with respect for the rest of the world?

Not according to Stu Bykofsky, who cannot even bring himself to acknowledge the realities on the ground in Iraq.

In Iraq, we don't believe our military is being beaten on the battleground. It's more that there is no formal "battleground." There is the drip of daily casualties and victory is not around the corner. Americans are impatient. We like fast food and fast war.

If that's the case, then Stu should stop at McDonald's on his way to the recruiting office.

Americans loved the 1991 Gulf War.

Some did, perhaps. But others -- those capable of sight and thought -- hated it, just like they hate every event in which innocent people are killed for no reason.

It raged for just 100 hours when George H.W. Bush ended it with a declaration of victory. He sent a half-million troops into harm's way and we suffered fewer than 300 deaths.

That's something to be proud of, I'm sure. We kicked the royal hell out of a defenseless country and it cost us less than 300 lives! Hooray!!

Of course that number doesn't include the number of American soldiers who have become hideously ill and died from depleted uranium poisoning. Nor does it include the wives and girlfriends they infected with cancerous bodily fluids. It doesn't include their children who were born with the inevitable birth defects.

And it certainly doesn't include any Iraqi victims -- civilians who were killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or who got cancer from the radiation, or who had deformed children because of what the Americans had done to their country.

Stu Bykofsky claims:

America likes wars shorter than the World Series.

But we like living in peace even better.

Because the war has been a botch so far, Democrats and Republicans are attacking one another, when they aren't attacking themselves. The dialog of discord echoes across America.

There are actually several "dialogs of discord".

The "dialog of discord" between Democrats and Republicans is an empty show; they present the illusion of disagreement to make us think we have a meaningful choice when election time rolls around.

For that matter, election time is an empty show too -- and this is another part of the problem. If Bush had ever been legitimately elected, and if it could be proven that he was legitimately elected, we would be a bit more unified behind him.

But unfortunately quite the opposite is true, and it's no wonder we're politically splintered.

Turn back to 9/11.

Yes, please! But let's do it with blinders off this time, shall we?

Remember the community of outrage and national resolve?

Yep. I sure do. But I also remember how pathological it was -- how pathetic and horrifying it was to see a rich and powerful nation vowing to take revenge on poor, powerless, innocent people, just because an unelected president, who has never told us the truth about anything, told us they were the villains.

For those who cannot remember, 9/11 was billed as a suicide attack. That meant the perpetrators were dead. There was no possibility of revenge against the people who attacked us. The country was united around a lie.

But that lie has been disintegrating all this time, and now only 16% of Americans believe the official story. That's 4% fewer than the percentage of Americans who believe the Sun revolves around the Earth. How stupid can we get?

Not stupid enough to suit Stu Bykofsky.

America had not been so united since the first Day of Infamy - 12/7/41.

Now, more and more Americans are starting to see who the enemy is, and the media -- especially the purveyors of rank bullshit -- Stu Bykofsky for one -- don't like it a bit. So they want another attack -- another mass murder to snap us into line.

Because we have mislaid 9/11, we have endless sideshow squabbles about whether the surge is working, if we are "safer" now, whether the FBI should listen in on foreign phone calls, whether cops should detain odd-acting "flying imams," whether those plotting alleged attacks on Fort Dix or Kennedy airport are serious threats or amateur bumblers. We bicker over the trees while the forest is ablaze.

Lie upon lie upon lie.

We haven't mislaid 9/11; we have only begun to see it for what it was. Well, some of us have begun to see, anyway.

And what do we see?

There is no forest. There is no blaze. There is only a continuing series of crimes against humanity, a continuing series of attacks on our (former) civil liberties, and a continuing series of alleged terrorists making impossible plans fomented by career criminals working for the FBI, either for money or in the hope of reducing their sentences.

America's fabric is pulling apart like a cheap sweater.

What would sew us back together?

Another 9/11 attack.

Probably not. But here's something that just might do the trick: a media revolution. A total commitment to truth in the news. An actual investigation into the causes and events of 9/11, with unfettered testimony from former national security insiders, like Sibel Edmonds for instance, and a specific focus on identifying the perpetrators and bringing them to justice. That would sew us together just fine.

But it's not going to happen. Because instead of telling us the truth, our "media geniuses" are busy drawing up lists of targets suitable for the attack they want to see next.

The Golden Gate Bridge. Mount Rushmore. Chicago's Wrigley Field. The Philadelphia subway system. The U.S. is a target-rich environment for al Qaeda.

Is there any doubt they are planning to hit us again?

Oh yes. There is considerable doubt that "they" exist at all!

Of course it all depends on what you mean by "they". If you mean the former CIA asset, Osama bin Laden, he certainly does appear to be dead. He hasn't been seen or heard from in years. Reports of his funeral are gathering dust. And the propaganda mongers who want us to see him as a threat cannot even come up with new video footage of him.

Not that it matters: the FBI doesn't list him as a suspect with respect to 9/11 because they have no evidence against him. But we're supposed to be afraid anyway.

Stu Bykofsky is not afraid. He's looking forward to a disaster that could very well spell the end of America as an even halfway-free country.

If it is to be, then let it be. It will take another attack on the homeland to quell the chattering of chipmunks and to restore America's righteous rage and singular purpose to prevail.

America's righteous rage? Please!

If America were consumed with righteous rage, there would be millions of people in the streets demanding a return to Constitutional democracy, and the mass-murderers who have been running our country for the past six and a half years would find their heads in bloody baskets. So, by the way, would lying hate-mongers like Stu Bykofsky. No wonder he longs for another attack, rather than a lucid explanation of the attack that did happen.

The unity brought by such an attack sadly won't last forever.

The first 9/11 proved that.

What a wonderful turn of phrase: "the first 9/11". It was a tragic day, unique in American -- world! -- history. There's no need for the word "first" in this sentence -- unless Stu is channeling Dick Cheney.

In the early days when we knew nothing of this, America -- indeed the entire world -- was united in grief. There was even a unanimous expression of support from the United Nations -- not just the Security Council but the entire General Assembly. The world was with us for a couple of days.

But instead of empowering an investigation to find any perpetrators who were still alive and bring them to justice, the unelected chimperor clumb up on a pile of smoking debris and declared endless, limitless war on the rest of the world.

Thus was any chance of unity lost.

Less than a month later, we started bombing Afghanistan, supposedly because the Taliban government there was harboring Osama bin Laden. They had even offered to deliver ObL to a court of justice if the Americans could provide evidence that he was behind the attacks. But no such evidence was provided -- because no such evidence existed.

Stu Bykofsky doesn't want you to know all this. He doesn't want you to know any of it. He simply wants you to be afraid. He wants you chipmunks to stop chattering. He wants the country united, even if it's united behind a lie.

Shame on Stu Bykofsky. Shame on the Philadelphia Daily News. Shame on anyone who read that column and said "Right on, Stu!" Shame on all of us.

We should have been out in the streets by now, in huge numbers. We should have shut down the federal government, trashed the mass hypnosis we call the "news media", and taken our country back from the terrorists who attacked us from within.

To our infinite shame we have done nothing of the sort. And now ... it may already be too late, even without "another 9/11".

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

Wisdom

And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.